Latencies and weightings in a domain name service (DNS) system

• US 8,341,297 B2
• Filed: 03/14/2012
• Issued: 12/25/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 07/19/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Akamai Technologies, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Akamai Technologies, Inc.
• Inventors: Swildens, Eric Sven-Johan, Day, Richard David, Gupta, Ajit K.
• Primary Examiner(s): JEAN, FRANTZ B
• Application Number:
  US13/419,723
• Publication Number:
  US 20120179814A1
• Time in Patent Office: 286 Days
• Field of Search: 709/203, 709/217, 709/219, 709/245, 709/225, 709/226, 709/224
• US Class Current: 709/245
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/14 Charging , metering or billing arrangements for data wireline or wireless communications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5083 wherein the managed service relates to web hosting
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/509 wherein the managed service relates to media content delivery, e.g. audio, video or TV
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0805 by checking availability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4511 using domain name system [DNS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4541 Directories for service discovery
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1008 based on parameters of servers, e.g. available memory or workload monitoring of computer activity G06F11/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/101 based on network conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1027 Persistence of sessions during load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1038 Load balancing arrangements to avoid a single path through a load balancer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

Abstract

A method for determining metrics of a content delivery and global traffic management network provides service metric probes that determine the service availability and metric measurements of types of services provided by a content delivery machine. Latency probes are also provided for determining the latency of various servers within a network. The latency probe calculates, for example, the latency from its location to a client'"'"'s location using the round trip time for sending a packet to the client to obtain the latency value for that client. DNS servers use the latency test results, along with traffic weightings, to determine a server to return for a given DNS name.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

determining latencies from locations associated with content servers to locations associated with DNS clients, wherein said determinations are made by servers operated by a service provider;

receiving one or more weightings for traffic from a user of the service provider, the service provider operating one or more DNS servers on behalf of the user;

wherein the one or more weightings from the user indicate more traffic should be sent to an address of a first content server compared to an address of a second content server, wherein the traffic comprises requests for content;

determining, by the one or more DNS servers operated by the service provider, for a given domain name, a content server address to return to a requesting DNS client using the one or more weightings and the determined latencies, so as to cause requests for content to be made to said determined content server address.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more DNS servers are located in a plurality of points-of-presence (POPs) distributed across a plurality of locations in the world.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the determined content server address comprises an IP address.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the traffic comprises HTTP requests for web content.

5. A system of one or more servers connected to a global computer network and having circuitry forming one or more processors and memory holding instructions that are executed by the one or more processors, the system comprising:

servers operated by a service provider that determine latencies from locations associated with content servers to locations associated with DNS clients;

servers operated by the service provider that receive one or more weightings for traffic from a user of the service provider, the service provider operating one or more DNS servers on behalf of the user;

wherein the one or more weightings from the user indicate more traffic should be sent to an address of a first content server compared to an address of a second content server, wherein the traffic comprises requests for content;

wherein the one or more DNS servers operated by the service provider determine, for a given domain name, a content server address to return to a requesting DNS client using the one or more weightings and the determined latencies, so as to cause requests for content to be made to said determined content server address.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the one or more DNS servers are located in a plurality of points-of-presence (POPs) distributed across a plurality of locations in the world.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein the determined content server address comprises an IP address.

8. The system of claim 5, wherein the traffic comprises HTTP requests for web content.

9. A non-transitory program storage medium readable by one or more computers, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the one or more computers to perform the steps of:

determining latencies from locations associated with content servers to locations associated with DNS clients, wherein said determinations are made by servers operated by a service provider;

receiving one or more weightings for traffic from a user of the service provider, the service provider operating one or more DNS servers on behalf of the user;

wherein the one or more weightings from the user indicate more traffic should be sent to an address of a first content server compared to an address of a second content server, wherein the traffic comprises requests for content;

determining, by the one or more DNS servers operated by the service provider, for a given domain name, a content server address to return to a requesting DNS client using the one or more weightings and the determined latencies, so as to cause requests for content to be made to said determined content server address.

10. The non-transitory program storage medium of claim 9, wherein the one or more DNS servers are located in a plurality of points-of-presence (POPs) distributed across a plurality of locations in the world.

11. The non-transitory program storage medium of claim 9, wherein the determined content server address comprises an IP address.

12. The non-transitory program storage medium of claim 9, wherein the traffic comprises HTTP requests for web content.